In 1994, the 47-year-old Boston intellectual was asked to leave the stage of a poetry reading in New York because he was wearing a T-shirt. The problem? The shirt’s slogan read: “What Would Jesus Blow?”

That's very Zen, Frank. Have you attained Nirvana?

The Colorado senate just passed a bill that would require all hospitals to disclose if they don't provide gender-affirming care, end-of-life options, and reproductive health-care. The hospitals won't be forced to provide any of this type of care if they don't want to, but they will no longer be allowed to hide that they don't. A lot of patients haven't found out that these types of care aren't provided until they've already paid for an appointment, are already dying, or even are already mid-birth, so this is a really important step.

And, honestly, this is how it should work. If you have religious objections to something (because it is primarily the Catholic hospitals with these problems) fine, you can do that, but you don't get to dictate other people's care based on your own beliefs. Forcing hospitals to disclose what they will and won't do allows patients to make informed choices on where they want to go based on their OWN beliefs.

Good start.

Still pretty fucked up any hospital gets to decide what counts as healthcare or not.

Cats painting studies by Paul Rabaud

Roads in Florida could soon include phosphogypsum — a radioactive waste material from the fertilizer industry — under a bill lawmakers have sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Conservation groups are urging DeSantis to veto the bill, saying phosphogypsum would hurt water quality and put road construction crews at a higher risk of cancer.

The Environmental Protection Agency also has a say in the matter: The agency regulates phosphogypsum, and any plan to use it in roads would require a review, the EPA told NPR.

Is it dangerous?

"Phosphogypsum contains appreciable quantities of uranium and its decay products, such as radium-226," according to the EPA. And because the fertilizer production process concentrates waste material, "phosphogypsum is more radioactive than the original phosphate rock," the agency notes.

"The radium is of particular concern because it decays to form radon, a cancer-causing, radioactive gas," the EPA adds.

(continue reading)

reblog and put in the tags what podcast you're currently listening to/most recently listened to

i don’t want us to merely survive, i want us to flourish

FBI: Clearly this is an Communist who hates America and Jesus. We're going to have to murder their whole family.

The only place I'd put my fist is in his face.

This will haunt my nightmares.

Squelch! Squelch is the technical shorthand for noise gating. Your antenna will constantly pick up ambient noise, which is useless and annoying to listen to all day while you wait for a call. Squelch tells the radio to mute the speakers if the overall power of the signal coming through is below a certain level. You twiddle your squelch until it just cuts out ambient noise, and when someone tries to talk to you the extra power from their signal will go above your squelch setting and it'll unmute so you can hear whoever's calling you.

You know what? Fuck you. *untwiddles your squelch*

​she twiddle my squelch till i end up abandoned and unidentified at a local museum

Just found out the EPA has released Level IV ecoregions for the whole USA. 967 of them.

My brain is liquefying in pure joy. Look at the colors!

I'm a 47f looking for a 72d to love.

talking about my problems to a professional is no longer enough i need targeted assassinations to occur

Apparently you're talking to the wrong sort of professional.

Far-Right Mass Shootings, May 2022-May 2023

Now that we know that the mass murderer in Allen, Texas was a far-right extremist and incel (as well as that puzzling but not-that-uncommon mix of being a racialized neo-nazi/white supremacist), we wanted to illustrate that mass shootings by the far-right are not aberrations with this list of similar events from over the last twelve months: December 23, 2022: A gunman opens fire in Paris, killing 3 Kurdish people & wounding 3 more in a plan to “kill non-European foreigners.” The attacker had just been released from prison after attacking migrants in Paris with a sword the year before. December 19-20, 2022: 22-year-old Anderson Aldrich enters a CO. gay bar with an assault rifle & opens fire, killing five and wounding 25 others before he is subdued. November 25, 2022: A 16-year-old former student storms two schools in Aracruz, Brazil, armed with two pistols and wearing a bulletproof vest emblazoned with a swastika. The teen shoots 16 people in the rampage, killing three of them. October 12, 2022: After posting an online manifesto against Jewish & LGBTQ+ people, a Bratislava, Slovakia teen shoots three people outside a local gay bar, killing two and wounding the third person before fleeing. The suspect was found dead the next day. September 27, 2022: Brothers Mark & Michael Sheppard are charged with manslaughter for opening fire on a group of migrants getting water near Hudspeth County, TX. One victim died from gunshot wounds, and one is recovering at an El Paso hospital. September 26, 2022: A gunman wearing a balaclava and a t-shirt with a swastika emblazoned on it enters an elementary school in Izhevsk, Russia, killing 15 people - 11 of them children - and wounding another 39 before turning the gun on himself. September 11, 2022: 53-year-old Igor Lanis’ obsession with far-right conspiracies ends when he guns down his wife, 25-year-old daughter, & family dog, before turning his shotgun on responding police, who shoot him dead. Only his daughter survives. August 9, 2022: A group of Black men helping someone jump-start a car in a Macon, GA. Wal-Mart parking lot are subjected to racial abuse by another man who then pulls a gun and begins shooting at them. May 15, 2022: 68-year-old David Wenwei Chou is charged with hate crimes after storming a Taiwanese church in Laguna Woods, CA. and shooting parishoners, killing one and injuring five others

May 14, 2022: An 18-year-old white supremacist opens fire in a supermarket in a black neighbourhood in Buffalo, NY, killing ten customers and wounding three others while livestreaming the attack.

May 11, 2022: A masked gunman walks shoots 3 Korean women working in a Dallas hair salon. Authorities believe the incident is connected to two earlier drive-by shootings targeting Asian-owned businesses in the Dallas area on April 2nd and May 10th. This is just a list of mass shootings committed by bigots, fascists, and far-right extremists over the last 12 months. We haven't included shooting with less than two victims, thwarted mass shootings, or any of bombings, stabbings, vehicle attacks, or other acts of violence.

In 2022 we documented 477 violent incidents motivated by hate or committed by bigots, fascists, or right-wing extremists, including 112 shootings. These attacks killed 366 people and injured 399 others. Read our 2022 report here. When we say anti-fascism = self-defence, we meant it. The endpoint for far-right ideology is mass murder. Fascists intend to do harm to our communities and will seize on any opportunity to hurt others. The only thing stopping them is ourselves. WE PROTECT US!

saw traps for the elderly

Roundabout

happy electric feel friday

happy electric feel friday

I'm reading The Book of Chuang Tzu and so far my only takeaway is I don't think I understand what the Tao is, except those who do claim to understand it never do, which means I might understand it? But of course, this means I absolutely do not

This is kind of the point. The Dao is everything and everything is the Dao. When you say what is is, by default you are saying what it is not. The Dao cannot be defined by words or science. So it is kind of a word game to discuss it.

1) Find what you are willing to put effort and time into, something you are passionate about.

Look at what motivated you to start being active, that's usually a good place to start. Climate change, unemployment, systematic racism, etc.

And consider what your time and effort look like; making flyers, budgeting, spreading the cause online, networking, protesting?

2) Pinpoint local community problems.

Is it food or housing insecurity for example? Is it a food desert? This is where knowing your community will be helpful; others in your community may be able to help with these things. Just remember not to take on projects bigger than you can realistically do, activist burnout is very real.

Also, the issues your community faces may not be directly linked to the things you're passionate about. You may have to compromise that you will be indirectly aiding your true passion than directly, for example. That's okay. Bring this up with your community after their more immediate needs are met.

3) Decenter yourself and learn.

Your ideas are amazing I'm sure, but it's good to remember to learn the basics about mutual aid before you start throwing out ideas. In general, it's good to learn the basics about Any given movement before you start throwing out solutions for it.

4) Talk to your community.

Building on the last point your community will know which issues are important to them and likely already have ideas on how they could be addressed.

Also, talk to people. Go to community events like games and other community events. Don't be a socialist weirdo proselytizing on the town Facebook page about the importance of a community you never interact with.

5) Now it's time to work with the community to reach your goals.

You did it! You know your role, how you can help, you have a cause, goals, and ideas to reach them now! Mutual aid time babeyy.

From here you can build more formal groups and even network to mutual aid groups in other cities. You could form free stores, community fridges or libraries, form tenants unions, and/or crowdfund for community medical expenses. Some (like the Black Panthers) even get big enough to have free medical clinics for there community members in need.

It's as complex as you make it.

This absolutely could include a rainbow railroad and would be an amazing opportunity for leftists to go out and show some solidarity and start laying down mutual aid foundations/networks 👀

Also... AOC actually has a really good pdf available for the more liberal minded or if you feel like you need a simpler/TLDR breakdown of mutual aid. I

It auto downloads so I don't want to link it since I know some people are cautious about that, but it is found quickly if you search up 'AOC mutual aid kit'

Her's is more focused on aiding with COVID, but the foundation she laid is easily reworked to fit the goal of a mutual aid rainbow railroad to protect and house LGBT refugees. Even the bit of dialogue would only need one tweak to serve a new purpose.

The Rainbow Railroad organization I linked only helps in severe cases which means if we want to systematically provide aid to all of our queer siblings in Florida then we need to provide that ourselves. BUT they do have some good groundwork we can reference on how to help and set up our own.

Upon arrival, we provide limited, short-term support to help people settle in.

If you're in a designated LGBT Refuge or protected state consider making these your local activist priorities:

Yeah some of the experience might suck and might not happen seamlessly, but getting our queer siblings out of a fascist and increasingly dangerous state and into safety should be the priority.

And you know what I think? I think it's doable. We got this.

We can do that. We can do this.

And the more of us there are safely in one place, the more powerful our voices, protests, and other actions will be 🖤✨

If anyone else has any other ideas feel free to share them, this is a community effort to take care of each other.

And join a union!!!!!!

What if we started actively disincentivizing landlords letting real estate stay empty rather than renting at reasonable prices? Like, give them a maximum of three months to get a new tenant in, and then they start accumulating fines for the unused space.

And some similar system to disincentivize the ridiculous airbnb market as well. Make it unprofitable to have homes sitting empty in a city where people with jobs find themselves living in tents. Hell, make it unprofitable to have homes sitting empty anywhere that has a homelessness problem.

The fine? The full rent amount they're asking for. You think $1700/month for a studio apartment is reasonable? Well, until you get someone into that apartment, you're going to be fined that same sum every month.

For Airbnb, a lower cost, but still based on how many nights/month the space is unused, and the fine will be based on the asking price per night.

This is... really, really sensible.

You liberals almost get it. You're so close.

You say that, but then you tag it with “ #housing should be free for all#kill all landlords “, literally calling for genocide against a whole class of people. Which is, you know, literally buying into the idea that it’s OK to use violence against people you don’t like. You think that if you started using violence and authoritarianism to enact your will on others, it would somehow not turn into an authoritarian dictatorship, because your principles are just too pure to be corrupted? You think that you are too clever to allow a charismatic sociopath to claw their way to the top in a situation like that, but I fundamentally don’t trust your judgement on that, because you say shit like this.

I wrote this post because I believe in democracy. I believe in taking the time to educate people and getting them onboard with compassionate policies. Because I know from studying history that whenever you try to skip over this step and go straight to a “solution”, you wind up hurting people. Both guilty and innocent.

I am not opposed to every use of violence against oppressors. Just before you try to go there. I very much recognize that sometimes, it’s appropriate. But it’s appropriate only as far as needed to actively save others. If the landlords are not actively killing us, then they should be dealt with through compassion and reeducation, through having their hoarded resources redistributed, not through a guillotine.

I know, from watching this post spread across tumblr, that a bunch of people have seen it and been inspired to actually attend their local city council meetings. Vacancy tax is something that has been passed in multiple places over the last few years. What are you doing, other than complaining and dreaming about violence?

Oh no, are we going to hurt the poor innocent landlords? I guess it's better people die from exposure while waiting for your liberal reforms.

Who owns the government? Not you. They will never write laws to restrict their own power.

Who brought up authority? Not me. You want the government to write more laws. Who are you going to call on to enact those laws? The police. Who always bring violence. This is why more laws can never be the solution.

A world without violence is a fantasy. The best we can do is remove power and eliminate systemic violence.